Adhesive tapes have been in use for many years. Devices and methods are known whereby a portion of an adhesive tape may be detackified or otherwise rendered non-adhesive. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,381 to Ryder and Ranalletta discloses a tape dispenser apparatus for tape having an adhesive surface, that includes a compartment for holding a plurality of individual tabs which can be successively removed from the compartment and applied to portions of the adhesive tape surface to provide multiple, covered adhesive surface portions of the tape. PCT International Publication No. WO 98/06652 discloses a length cutting fixture which can be used to form a pull tab or “gripper” at the end of a long length of a conventional single-sided adhesive tape. The length cutting fixture also serves to cut the long length of tape, now including the gripper, to any desired length. The gripper is formed by folding the end of the tape back onto itself
So called double-sided adhesive tapes (i.e., tapes bearing adhesive on both major opposing surfaces) are also widely known. For example, so-called stretch releasing adhesive tapes are useful in a wide variety of assembling, joining, attaching, and mounting applications. Devices and methods are known whereby the adhesive surface of a particular portion of a stretch releasing adhesive tape can be rendered non-adhesive so that this portion of the adhesive tape can serve as a nonadhesive pull tab (such that the user can grasp and pull the tab to activate the stretch releasing properties of the tape). For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,012 to Luhmann et al. discloses a strip of an adhesive film for a re-releasable adhesive bond, one end of the strip being provided on both sides with a UV-opaque covering which at the same time serves as a tab for pulling. U.S. Pat. No. 6,641,910 to Bries and Johansson discloses a stretch releasing tape that includes a segmented liner that can be used to form a manually engagable pull tab.